James Joyce: A Political Life

ISBN: 0691227977

Author: Callanan, Frank

Condition: New

A major new biography that reveals how politics profoundly shaped Joyces life, thought and writingsThe young James Joyce (1882-1941) was forged in the smithy of Irish political controversies, and he took into his European exile a depth of political insight unrivalled among his fellow modernists. In this biography of Joyce in his youth and early exile, acclaimed Irish historian and biographer Frank Callanan reveals a Joyce who is markedly more politically conscious, informed and complex than the Joyce of Richard Ellmanns classic account. Written in a sparkling style and rich with historical insights, Callanans deeply researched biography is the first sustained account of how Joyces Irish and European political and cultural context shaped his life, thought, and writings.Joyce was eight years old in 1890 when the OShea divorce scandal tore Irish nationalism apart, leading to the split in the Irish Parliamentary Party, the death of nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell, and a long, bitter period dominated by the anti-Parnellites. This was the Ireland that Joyce grew up in and rebelled against, and which determined his literary direction. Callanan uncovers a Joyce who was a highly original and dissenting Irish nationalist, who refused to avow or vaunt his nationalism and whose understanding was refined by the experience of living in multicultural Trieste with its fraught ethnic politics and differing models of statehood. Callanans Joyce is as heroic as Ellmanns defiantly modernistic artist but in a more interesting way-a writer who didnt lack political conviction but whose views didnt yield to the expectations of his time.Energizing, witty, profound, and elegant, James Joyce: A Political Life is a magisterial biography that will transform how readers look at Joyce and his politics.